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Podcast Enterprise: S2E20 Return to tomorrow

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode begins, you have the USS Enterprise approaching a sort of destroyed class M planet, which at one point might have had Earth-like conditions. They’re approaching this planet. There seems to be some sort of distressing signal that they’ve picked up. As they come closer, they are faced with a lot of problems, and they also have to listen to this mysterious, disembodied, ghostly speaker that calls itself Sargon. He tells the Enterprise that he is one of the denizens of that planet, and it seems like he’s the only denizen of that planet at this point.

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy decide to have themselves transported down deep below the planet’s surface. There seems to be some sort of chamber that could support human life down there, and Sargon wants to meet them there, so they decide to go. It is also something of a compulsion for them to go meet Sargon because he apparently can control what’s happening in the ship, and he seems to be all-powerful, which is pretty frightening.

They find that Sargon is pretty much a globe of light. He’s a pulsing light within a plastic-type globe, and as Kirk approaches it, he’s possessed by the essence of Sargon. McCoy goes into a panic and tells Sargon to escape Kirk’s body because his temperature and BP are dangerously high. But not before discovering that whatever happened on that planet was some sort of cataclysmic event that took place 500,000 years ago. The people of this planet, Sargon’s people, were explorers. They had a big fight with each other and wiped themselves out. They also went off to lesser-developed planets and took part in their creation myths. This is a little confusing, as they seem to have been the source of the Adam and Eve myth on Earth, which is quickly dismissed. They were also the source of a creation myth on Vulcan, which Spock confirms.

What they want from the Enterprise now is to have the bodies of three people—Kirk, Spock, and Lieutenant Commander Ann Mulhall—whom Sargon commands to meet him using his telepathic powers. They also discover that Sargon was not the only alien on that planet. His wife, Thalassa, has also survived in her essence form, as well as a member of the rival faction. He calls himself Henoch. Against all common sense, Kirk and the crew decide to allow these three entities to possess them: Thalassa into Mulhall, Sargon into Kirk, and Henoch into Spock, which makes Spock grin as it’s a new personality for him.

From there, everything descends into chaos. These aliens have too much power. They haven’t had bodies in half a million years, and they want to keep the human bodies, pushing out the original personalities. Henoch, in particular, doesn’t care that he’s slowly killing Spock’s body. He even convinces Thalassa to do the same thing for a brief time. Everything goes haywire. Henoch wants to kill Sargon, take over the Enterprise, and achieve utter power.

In the end, Kirk as Sargon, Mulhall as Thalassa, and Spock (at least his essence) come together to defeat these alien forces. In a bizarre scene, it’s revealed that Spock’s essence has been stored in Nurse Chapel’s body. After Henoch is evicted from Spock’s body, Spock’s essence is returned to its rightful place. Everything returns to normal. Sargon and Thalassa share a brief romantic moment before choosing ritual suicide, being evicted back into deep space, where they die.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E19 Private Little War

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode opens, what you have is McCoy, Kirk, and Spock. They’re on this planet called Neural, and it’s pretty green, and it’s pretty lush. And These three are there to do some scientific experiments on the plants of this planet, because the plants apparently have medicinal value, and These three crew members want to collect samples and kind of develop them into whatever they can be developed into.

But as they are conducting their investigations, they find that the inhabitants of this planet for some reason suddenly have firearms. And as far as they know, this is a planet that is still in its primitive stages. So the civilization here hasn’t become a civilization and they are supposed to be in tribal societies.

And something has obviously happening. to them that they have suddenly got firearms, which is way too advanced for them at this point. And it is here that Kirk sees that one group of tribesmen with firearms is trying to attack another group of tribesmen. And he knows the leader of the other group of tribesmen and he wants to save him because Kirk apparently has been to this planet some 13 years back as as a younger officer and he has befriended this particular tribesman and he saves him from an ambush.

But while all of this is happening, Spock is attacked by an ape like creature called a mugato and apparently that thing’s bites and slashes are poisonous. While they managed to defeat this mugato, he saved his friend, but then that action actually brought them in sight of the other tribesmen, and now they get attacked.

Spock is shot, and they have to make an emergency teleportation back to the ship so that he can be healed. And while this is going on, Kirk is actually pretty confused because like I said before, this is not a planet that has had much development. They are also protected by the prime directive, which means outside interference cannot happen.

So someone or something has broken that and allowed them to develop firearms or they were given firearms as form of some sort of bribe. We don’t know at this point. They get back to the ship. Spock is in very bad condition, and we are also introduced to a new character, Dr. Nenga, who has to treat Spock.

And while and The thing is, now Kirk wants to go back to the planet and try and find out what is happening there and why they have firearms. So he, along with McCoy, teleport, transport themselves back to Neural. When they do that, this mugato comes back, the mate of the mugato, I think, or another mugato, I’m not very sure, comes back, attacks Kirk, and poisons him.

And now he’s in a very serious state. McCoy manages to contact Kirk’s friend and have him take him to the village on Neural. And the Apparently, this friend’s wife has some healing capacity, so she will be able to extract the poison from Kirk, is what we understand. And Kirk’s friend is now chieftain his wife is a very ambitious woman.

She comes back to where Kirk is being stationed. She heals Kirk and now she has designs on Kirk and then eventually you learn that she also wants her husband to be one of the most powerful individuals on that planet. This particular tribe does not have firearms her husband is something of a pacifist.

He does not want weapons and violence, but the other tribe does have weapons and violence, and she wants him to be like that so that the tribes are equal and he gets more power. Kirk, after he has recovered from the poison, somehow takes her point of view because it dawns on him that the other tribe has firearms because of the Klingons. It all gets pretty complicated as as the story progresses. Kirk manages to infiltrate the other tribe along with Spock and his friend Tyree. And they’ve, no, apologies, he manages to infiltrate the other tribe, They find that the other tribe is being given firearms by the Klingons, just as he has suspected, and then now Kirk is completely I wouldn’t call it influenced, but he is kind of swayed by his friend’s wife to kind of arm the peaceful tribe also with firearms and he begins to do so thereby breaking the prime directive.

And as this is happening, One event leads to another, and then It also comes to be that this particular woman, the wife of Kirk’s friend, is also something of a traitor. She wants power. She manages to steal Kirk’s phaser because that is the most powerful weapon she has ever seen.

First of all, she tries to seduce Kirk. When that doesn’t work very well, or it, something goes awry, she steals Kirk’s phaser. She goes to the other tribe, she’s ambushed by the other tribe, and then she’s killed by the other tribe. And this is, Her killing was actually the catalyst that brought about total change on that planet, because Kirk’s friend Tyree, now he decides that he will opt for violence as a form of vengeance and the episode ends there.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E18 Immunity Syndrome

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode begins, you have the USS Enterprise in a state of exhaustion.

Everybody on board is extremely tired after their last mission and they’re looking forward to some short leave on Starbase 6 and they’re on their way to the Starbase 6. Here, on the way though, Uhura picks up some distorted signals and with some sector coordinates. There’s also a lot of static with this communication, so she can’t make out what they are saying.

Eventually, though she does get through, and this communication is coming from Starbase 6, they want the Enterprise to change course and go to the Gamma 7A system where the Intrepid was last seen investigating. This is a Vulcan ship and something has happened to the Intrepid which the Enterprise must now investigate Kirk is a little reluctant to do it because everybody is so tired.

While they’re in the process of changing course, Spock wasn’t goes into a state of shock because he has apparently suffered some sort of a psychic attack where he has received mental communication of some kind from the Vulcan ship Intrepid, and it seems that everybody on board the Interpret has been killed.

And he also says, eventually later, much later, Spock also says that they were surprised by this death that suddenly, suddenly hit them. And this is a huge mystery. As the Enterprise goes to the Gamma 7A system, they find that there’s something or there’s something completely wrong that the system is dead.

There are no people, there is no life. And they also approach some sort of a dark zone, a dead zone. They can’t see anything. The stars are blotted out and it seems like a gash in deep space. They can’t see anything beyond it. They are not able to probe into it and they’re not able to see it except for this large void right directly in their path.

Spock has trouble trying to figure out what it is exactly and this irritates Kirk quite a bit. But, and as they approach this black zone, it seems that everyone is getting more and more tired. The engines are somehow losing power. There’s a lot of issues with the forward thrust because engineering has issues and the ship’s systems have issues.

And then finally Kirk, after a briefing with McCoy and Spock decides to send some sort of a probe into this dark zone. And by this time, the Enterprise has also entered the dark zone. So they’re losing power. They’re losing light. They’re losing energy. Everybody’s beyond tired and they need to be given boosters.

After some investigation, it is found that this dead zone is actually some sort of a shielding for a single cell creature, an amoeba-type creature that kind of creates a zone around it. It radiates negative energy and it leaches off the energy of anything that approaches it.

And It’s sometimes it’s also capable of killing off entire solar systems. And the Intrepid had approached this creature and it got killed in the process. It’s not actively killing the, um, it’s not actively killing anything that approaches it. And you just die. That’s what it does. And The radius of this thing is about 11, 000 miles, apparently, which is huge.

Both McCoy and Spock volunteer to travel into this creature to try and figure out a way to destroy it. However, Spock wins over McCoy, which causes a bit of irritation for McCoy. And we can talk about it. And He takes a shuttlecraft, goes into the thing to study it, and then through his analysis and studies of this amoeba, they find that they can actually blow it up.

The episode ends like that because they have to, they figure out this way, how to blow it up. They use a certain way to blow it up and you can talk about it. And as there is also some issue with the gravitational pull of this thing, because it’s drawing the ship forward.

They cannot break free of that pull. They rig an explosion, break free of it, move backwards, grab the shuttlecraft with Spock in it and his heroics and whatever jokes he has with McCoy, they grab Spock in the shuttle craft, they go back and this thing was finally killed. And that’s how the episode ends.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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How to Write a Novel – Building a Strong Story Arc

In this post, we’ll dive deeper into creating a story arc.

If you’ve been following the series, the steps we’ve covered so far:

• Write a one-liner for your novel
• Write the main story arc
• Create supporting characters and draft their motivations

Now, before we move into crafting arcs for these support characters, let’s first break down how to construct a compelling story arc. I am going to use Marlin in Finding Nemo. Oh, I so love him, what an adorable father!!!

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Trends of Innovation Talk - Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City

In a recent Trends of Innovation talk with the folks from Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City, held on September 27th at 7 p.m. Mexico time, I explored the application of Altshuler’s technical laws of evolution—specifically the law of increasing ideality, the law of increasing dynamism, and the transition to super systems. Here are three ideas that I came up to demonstrate the application of these laws:

Dynamic Keyboard (Law of Increasing Ideality)

The concept here is to reduce unnecessary components, making the keyboard more adaptable. By removing features like keys, stands, numpads, and even the letters themselves, we could shift to a dynamic display. Imagine an LED panel that adapts based on the language or typing requirements. With this, users would no longer need multiple physical keyboards for different languages, and the design could cater to various use cases, reducing complexity while increasing functionality.

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E17 Piece of the Action

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode begins, the USS Enterprise is in orbit around Sigma Iotia II. They’ve arrived at this planet in response to a radio signal from the Horizon, a ship that visited Sigma Iotia II about a hundred years ago. The Horizon, lacking the non-interference directive that later became Starfleet policy, inadvertently contaminated the culture on Sigma Iotia II. The Enterprise’s mission is to check on the planet and its civilization, assessing the impact of this contamination.

Upon approaching the planet, the crew receives an invitation from a character named Bela Okmyx (or Oxmyx, as the pronunciation varies). He refers to himself as “Boss” and requests a meeting with Captain Kirk. Amused, Kirk decides to investigate and beams down to Sigma Iotia II with Spock and McCoy. Upon arrival, they find a world that looks strikingly like Chicago of the 1920s, complete with people dressed in suits, women in frocks, and a gangster-like atmosphere. Almost immediately, they are accosted by gangsters claiming to be henchmen of Okmyx.

The gangsters take them to a large building where they find Okmyx playing pool. He speaks to Kirk in a half-polite, somewhat friendly manner. Spock soon discovers the source of the cultural contamination left by the Horizon—a book about the Chicago mobs of the 1920s. The Iotians, being highly intelligent and imitative, adopted this book as a sort of holy guide, shaping their entire culture around it and turning themselves into gangsters.

Okmyx becomes a problem for Kirk when he demands that Kirk supply him with weapons—specifically, the phasers he calls “heaters.” He wants these weapons to wage war against rival gang leaders and unite all the gangs on Sigma Iotia II under his rule. Naturally, Kirk refuses, leading Okmyx to imprison him. However, Kirk manages to escape by inventing a nonsensical card game called Fizzbin. Despite escaping, Kirk is promptly captured by a rival mob boss, who has similar demands—wanting weapons and control of the Enterprise.

Kirk finds himself in a precarious situation, needing to use all his wits to prevent these gangs from destroying each other and to instill some semblance of unity. There are several memorable scenes, including Kirk’s attempt to drive a car, which adds a humorous touch. Eventually, Kirk manages to bring the two gang bosses, along with others, into one place. He demonstrates the power of the Enterprise, which helps him get their attention. Adopting a gangster persona himself, Kirk talks about cuts and profits, appealing to their interests, even though it’s against Starfleet regulations. Despite the chaos, he succeeds in uniting the gangs.

Finally, the crew of the Enterprise, including Kirk, is released by the gang bosses, and they return to the ship. However, the episode ends with a twist—McCoy realizes he left something very important behind on Sigma Iotia II, which hints at potential future problems.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E16 Gamesters of Triskelion

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode opens, the Enterprise is in orbit around a planetoid called Gamma II, which appears to be uninhabited. Captain Kirk, Ensign Chekov, and Uhura are tasked with beaming down to the planet’s surface to investigate and carry out some studies. However, when they enter the transporter room and attempt to beam down, something unexpected happens—they simply vanish. This disappearance has nothing to do with the transporter or an engineering glitch, as Scotty tries to explain to Mr. Spock. They have been whisked away to another world by an unknown power.

Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura find themselves in a peculiar arena-like area, where they are suddenly confronted by three strange characters. The first is a large figure with fangs, the second is an orange-hued woman in a swimsuit-like outfit, and the third is another woman with green hair, also dressed in a silvery swimsuit. These characters approach in a threatening manner, and then a fourth figure appears, convincingly dressed like Dracula. He introduces himself as Galt, the master thrall, and informs them that they are now on the planet Triskelion. He tells them that they are thralls and must be trained for combat in the arena.

On Triskelion, Kirk and his crew learn about the “Providers,” mysterious beings who are the true owners of the thralls but are never seen. Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura are thrown into jail cells, each assigned to a trainer or drill sergeant. Kirk is paired with the green-haired woman, and a strange romance develops as he tries to stir feelings of rebellion and affection in her. Meanwhile, the crew members are fitted with slave collars, preventing them from escaping and forcing them into fights where they suffer injuries.

While all this is happening on Triskelion, Spock aboard the Enterprise deduces that Kirk and the others are not on Gamma II but have been taken elsewhere. Following what McCoy calls a hunch, but Spock insists is logical and scientific, Spock traces them to Triskelion, located at the other end of the galaxy. The journey strains the Enterprise’s engines, but they locate Kirk and the crew. However, they are not allowed to beam back to the Enterprise.

In the climax, Kirk manages to communicate with the Providers and is teleported underground to discover that they are three glowing, plasticky brains obsessed with wagering on the thralls’ battles. They consider themselves a superior race. Kirk cleverly tricks them into granting the thralls their freedom, and finally, they return to the Enterprise. The episode ends with Kirk and his crew back on the ship, free from the bizarre challenges of Triskelion.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E15 Trouble with Tribbles

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode begins, you find that the USS Enterprise is en route to a space station called K7. This space station is quite large and is very close to a planet called Sherman’s Planet, which is one of those strategic locations. It is a strategic planet claimed by both the Federation and the Klingons, and the only thing that is keeping these two races from going to war with each other is the Organian Peace Treaty. According to the treaty, neither race is allowed to fight each other; the Klingons cannot fight the humans, and the humans cannot fight the Klingons. They have to figure out a peaceful way to resolve any issue they may have, and that also applies to Sherman’s Planet.

As the Enterprise is en route to Deep Space Station K7, which is the last stop before Sherman’s Planet, they receive a code one alert from the space station. A code one alert indicates near-total destruction and an attack, so the Enterprise goes into red alert. Kirk orders them to travel at warp six speed, but when they get to the space station, they find absolutely nothing. There’s no Klingon attack, no sign of danger—just total silence. Everything is peaceful. Kirk gets communication from the space station manager, Lurry, who says that he has a problem and that Kirk better come down. There is no attack, which infuriates Kirk to no end. So, he goes down to the space station with Spock, and they meet a very charming individual called Nilz Barris, who is an undersecretary in charge of Sherman’s Planet for that quadrant.

Barris has issued a code one alert because he has a peculiar wheat, as Kirk likes to call it, called Quadrotriticale, which is the only thing that will grow on Sherman’s Planet. He has several tons of it stored on Deep Space Station K7 and wants Kirk to supply him with guards to protect the storage compartments. For that, he issued the code one alert. Immediately, Kirk and Barris are at loggerheads because neither can see eye to eye. Kirk believes that Barris is acting too powerful, while Barris feels that Kirk is being very unreasonable. In any case, Barris also has a very short-tempered aide called Arne Darvin, who has some secrets of his own, as we’ll discover later.

While all of this is happening, Kirk also declares shore leave because they’ve come so far, and the crew comes down to the space station. Here, at the bar of the space station, we are introduced to a very flamboyant merchant called Cyrano Jones, who is selling a lot of things. He’s trying to sell gems and some Anterian glow water. The barkeeper is not buying his stuff, but Uhura, who has come down for her shore leave, finds him selling a small, furry, purring, musical little creature called a Tribble. She is immediately taken in by that creature. She wants it, buys it, and takes it back to the Enterprise.

And that’s where the troubles begin because the Tribbles start multiplying. Soon there are eight, then several more. Dr. McCoy cannot figure out how these things are multiplying. The ship is soon overrun with Tribbles—they’re everywhere. They’re on the bridge, in the engine room, in the air vents, and even in the food synthesizers. While Kirk is getting a headache from this, the Klingons decide to orbit Space Station K7. The captain of the Klingon battle cruiser and his aide come down to Deep Space Station K7, adding to Kirk’s woes as he now has to deal with them and prevent an all-out war. Kirk tells them they can only bring 12 Klingons at a time for shore leave.

Pandemonium ensues as the Klingons provoke the humans on shore leave, leading to Scotty starting a fight with them. This results in a great deal of bruising, and shore leave is canceled for both sides. While Kirk is grappling with all these issues, he also manages to corner Cyrano Jones and ask why he didn’t warn them about how quickly the Tribbles reproduce. Nobody knows exactly how they reproduce, but they do. It then strikes Kirk that since the Tribbles are getting into the air vents and food synthesizers on the Enterprise, they’ve probably gotten into the storage compartments on Deep Space Station K7. This hunch proves correct, as on examining the storage compartments of the space station, Kirk finds that the Tribbles have eaten all of the Quadrotriticale, much to Barris’s anger.

Barris had tried to warn Kirk to look after the grain, but it was too late. All the grain is gone, and now the human race is at a disadvantage, leading to potential political ramifications. Kirk launches an investigation and eventually discovers that many of the Tribbles who ate the Quadrotriticale have died. It turns out that the Klingons had something to do with it—the Tribbles don’t like the Klingons, which becomes important later. McCoy informs Kirk that the grain has been infected with a virus that turns inert once ingested, eventually leading to starvation. This is what happened to all the Tribbles.

With some ingenious deductions, Kirk finds out that Barris’s volatile and short-tempered aide, Arne Darvin, is actually a Klingon surgically altered to look like a human. He is the one who poisoned the grain in an attempt to give the Klingons an advantage, potentially creating a war-like situation and allowing them to invade Sherman’s Planet. Once this is uncovered, Kirk has Darvin arrested and evicts the Klingon commander from Deep Space Station K7. Everything seems peaceful, but when Kirk returns to the Enterprise, he finds that there are no Tribbles left aboard. He wonders where they have gone, only for Scotty to humorously inform him that they have transferred all the Tribbles to the engine room of the Klingon spaceship. The Tribbles can’t stand the Klingons, and the Klingons can’t stand the Tribbles, leading to a very humorous ending where all’s well that ends well.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

Continue reading

Podcast Enterprise: S2E14 Wolf in the Fold

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode opens, you find Scott along with Kirk and Dr. McCoy on a planet called Argelius II. They’re here for some sort of medical show leave for Scott. Apparently he’s been involved in an accident and he has a concussion. And this accident was apparently caused by something, a female crew member aboard the Enterprise, something that she did cause this accident.And because of this concussion, Scott has been acting rather strange, apparently, and he has this absolute resentment towards women. Kirk and Dr. McCoy believe that bringing him down to Argelius II on medical shore leave will help him get over this resentment. For women, and because Argelia is to be something of a hedonistic society.It’s a very open planet, it’s a pleasure planet, and there are women there who can potentially entice Scott to help him get over his resentment. When the episode opens you find the three of them watching a belly dance, carried out by an Argelian woman.Because Scott is so enthralled by this Argelian woman. Kirk invites her to join them at the spot in this cafe. And she comes there. She talks to Scott.

They decide to go for a walk in the misty outside. Then they hear a scream. Something happens.And when Kirk and McCoy rush outside to see what’s going on, they find that the Argelian woman is dead. She’s stabbed multiple times, and there they find Scott leaning against the wall, half conscious with a knife in his hand. So it looks like he has apparently carried out this murder.In the next act you find that they’re introduced to a certain Mr. Hengist, a chief city administrator, something like a detective and a police officer combined. For some strange reason, the Argelians do not have law enforcement officers of their own.

So they have hired this alien from another planet called Rigel IV to come and handle all their law related matters.And Hengist is one of those characters from Rigel IV and he has to investigate this murder. He has decided Scott is guilty although he doesn’t say it out loud. Scotty is not being cooperative because he does not remember half of what happened. He seems to have blanked out. After that, they come into contact with the prefect of the Argelian world, which is Prefect Jaris and his wife called Sybo. What Jaris suggests is that they invoke some sort of a telepathic right involving his wife, and this is something that the Argelians have been doing for many centuries or maybe millennia. She has the ability to telepathically communicate with people and they decide to hold some sort of ritual, so that they can figure out who has been killing these women and this particular woman who was a dancer.It looks like Scott did it and Kirk has to agree to it because there’s no other way. Scott doesn’t remember anything.

All the evidence is pointing to him being the prime suspect. Hengist is completely annoying and he’s not helping matters. And what happens is that while they are holding this psychic telepathic ritual, the lights go off, everything goes dark, there’s a scream again, and then Sybo is murdered.And again, you find Scott holding her body . And it looks like he has killed her. And now the evidence is so strong against him that Kirk decides to take everyone back to the Enterprise and hold some sort of an inquest using the Enterprise’s computers. That is the only way they can prove whether Scott actually did this or didn’t do it.If you had left this to Hengist, Scott would have been subject to Argelian laws, which even Jaris says is pretty brutal. Back on the ship, they hold a trial and then they find that it wasn’t Scott who did it.

There is a strange entity called Redjac. And I missed a point here while they were holding the psychic telepathic ritual with Sybo, she did say something about Beratus, Kesla and Redjac. That is some sort of an evil entity that has been haunting this area. When they get back to the Enterprise they run a linguistic test to find out who Beratus, Kesla and Redjac are. They find that Redjac is another name for Jack the Ripper and Kirk pieces two and two together and finds out that the entity that has been killing all of these women is not Scotty. It feeds off fear and women in particular because according to Spock’s logic, women are more prone to extreme emotions.

Hengist, who has been aboard the Enterprise as part of the inquest, starts behaving in a very peculiar way. And then they find out that he has been possessed by this Redjac. Hengist has been dead for some time. This disembodied creature climbs into the ship’s controls.It wants to terrorize the entire crew so that it can feed off their fear. And to prevent that, Kirk has the entire crew sedated, which creates some humorous moments because they act as though they’re completely drunk.

And Redjac still aboard the Enterprise and haunting the computers. As he decides to come. There’s a certain trick that Spock suggests forces him out of the computer systems.He comes out possesses Jaris for a while, jumps out of Jaris’s body, possesses Hengist again, tries to stab and murder and create utmost terror on the Enterprise. But then Kirk and McCoy’s quick thinking with Kirk and McCoy’s quick thinking, they managed to sedate the already dead and reanimated Hengist so that he goes into some sort of catatonic state.And then they teleport him out into deep space and leave him floating there so that this entity called Redjac, he’s just drifting across deep space apparently, it’s also older than time. So they don’t know for sure if it would die out, but they’re hoping that it will.And that’s how this episode ends.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E13 The Obsession

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

When Obsession opens you find Kirk, Spock, an ensign called Rizzo, Leslie, and a security guard. They are down on planet Argus X carrying out a survey for Tritanium, a substance harder than diamond. They are surveying the planet for this material.

They actually find this material and while they’re doing this, Kirk notices that there is some sort of a smell in the air. It’s a sickly sweet. It smells a bit like honey. And Kirk freezes because he recognizes the smell. He knows the smell and he has smelt it somewhere in the past, somewhere on the other side of the galaxy. So he sends the red shirts to examine this scent and find out where it is coming from and he also tells him that if he if they find a sort of gaseous cloud to fire at it because that is the source of the smell. The red shirts including Rizzo find this cloud they find but before they could fire at this gaseous cloud, it attacks them.

It kills them and it drains all the red corpuscles of their body.So they’re basically white colored. Rizzo is alive, just barely. He’s taken back to the ship. McCoy Gives him a lot of blood transfusions to keep him alive. Kirk wants Rizzo awakened so that he can question him. Kirk has some sort of an obsession because of this creature, and this is because of something that happened in his past.And when Rizzo is awakened, he describes the creature and then promptly dies. Kirk also has a problem because he has to rendezvous with the USS Yorktown, taking some vaccines and deliver them to a faraway planet, and those vaccines are perishable.

If they don’t get them to this planet on time, it’s going to be a real disaster.But Kirk is too preoccupied with this cloud to do any of that. He’s delaying. He wants to remain in orbit around the planet Augusta X so that he can find out more about this creature, but scans show nothing as time goes on. Kirk gets more obsessed with it. Finally, this creature leaves the planet’s orbit, goes into space. Kirk wants to follow it. He goes on warp eight until the engines are about to explode.

He slows down and the creature also slows down, turns back and Kirk orders for this creature to be fired at using the photon torpedoes, but they go right through the creature and it begins to advance on the ship. Now, the problem here is that there is a certain character, Ensign Garowick, that Kirk has been constantly and continuously berating throughout this episode. Ensign Garowick is made to feel guilty for a certain event. He’s so upset that in his room he throws a plate onto a certain ventilation system control and the control jams, the creature finds a opening through that ventilation control.It enters the ship and Kirk has a problem because the creature can kill 200 people at a time. He knows this because the last time he encountered this creature was 11 years ago when he was aboard the USS Farragut as a young officer.

It was the same creature at the other end of the galaxy that attacked the USS Farragut, attacked everybody else aboard the ship except Kirk, who survived, and killed them.That was about 200 people it killed at one go. This is why Kirk has an obsession with this creature. This thing is inside the USS Enterprise and Kirk orders that the radioactive waste be flushed into the ventilation system. They have only about two hours left of breathable air and finally, they managed to get this thing out and it’s moving towards a certain place, Tycho IV, which is where it originates and that is also where the USS Farragut was attacked.

Kirk orders the ship to go there and find this creature and use an antimatter blast to attack it because this creature is apparently made of some unknown material called Dikeronium so they go there and unleash an antimatter blast. Kirk pulls off a feat of heroism. They destroy the creature and come back to the Enterprise, and finally, Kirk has some measure of peace of mind.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

Continue reading